


From the Beginning, One Last Time

by Neotoma



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Cartoon Physics, Gen, Interdimensional Travel, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neotoma/pseuds/Neotoma
Summary: Miles has one more Spider-Person to meet, it turns out.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 103
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	From the Beginning, One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starculler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/gifts).



> Thanks to greenygal for betaing!

Two months after Peni perfected the transdimensional portal watches (aka ‘the goobers’, thanks Peter B) Miles was patrolling Midtown. He was doing pretty well, if he did say so himself.

“You’re still missing your webshots?” Gwen asked as she swung up behind him. “You almost splattered against that building."

“It was a choice. I’m perfecting my leaps,” Miles replied—a suave comeback, he thought.

“Perfecting them into a Spider splat, you mean.”

“I--”

KRAAKAKAKKK!

“What was that?!”

“Over there!” 

They leapt towards the echoes of that massive sound. It was a couple of blocks into a neighborhood that edged towards run-down, ripe for sprouting Foam Party storefronts.

There wasn’t any obvious cause on the street -- no wrecked car, or burst hydrant.

“Miles, look!” Gwen pointed past him, up towards a roof and a billboard.

There was a guy in costume, peeling himself off the surface of the billboard, where he’d obviously done a face-plant straight into the thing, which seemed to be a Spider rite of passage.

“Oww!” the guy groaned, and flopped to the rooftop.

Miles and Gwen swung onto the roof and approached the guy where he was laid out. He was breathing, that was sure, and hissing loud and irate grumbles, but he didn’t seem to be getting back up.

They got close, and yep, that was a spider logo in red on the man’s chest. A pretty cool design, too, because it looked like a spider and also a skull; that kind of optical effect was tricky to design, Miles knew. He had tried.

“Spider-Man?” Miles asked. Miles felt a hint of the buzz he’d gotten every time he’d met one of the other Spiders, but it was faint, like a phone going off in someone else’s pocket.

The Spider-Man sprawled on the roof groaned and clutched his head.

“Hey, skull-face!” Gwen bellowed.

That made the strange Spider-Man jerk and look up at them. He yanked his hands down and out, sitting halfway into the ‘ready’ stance Miles had seen every Spider adopt, and had done himself more than a few times.

Miles tried for gentle, pitching his question clear but soft. “What’s your name, dude?”

“Spider-Man.”

“Well, that’s not helpful. I’m Spider-Man too,” Miles explained, and then indicated Gwen, “and she’s Spider-Woman, so…”

“He’s probably just another Peter,” Gwen said. She somehow managed to sneer dismissively with just her shoulders.

That made the other Spider-Man scrunch up his nose, which looked really weird with the designs on his mask that winged from his brow out around his eye sockets and down towards his mouth.

“My name’s not Peter,” he protested.

“Fine, not-Peter it is,” Gwen said.

“C’mon, not-Peter, we’ll get you help.” They propped the not-Peter Spider-Man up against the billboard pilings and considered him.

“I am not answering to ‘Not-Peter’!” the other Spider-Man groaned.

Gwen folded her arms. Miles copied her.

“Fine,” Not-Peter whined. “It’s Miguel.”

“Thanks. We’re going to talk to the experts, Miguel.” Miles touched his goober and tried texting Peter B. “AFK” came back almost instantly.

“Try Noir?” Gwen suggested. He was pretty responsive. Even though he didn’t like them coming to his world -- he thought they stuck out too much -- he was always willing to come help when they needed him.

“No response…”

Gwen winced. “Well, Ham  _ might _ be able to help. Let’s see if he’s available.”

He was. He told them to come right over, he’d meet them at his apartment.

It wasn’t fair, Miles thought, that Gwen got to be so cool in Ham’s universe. She could skate anywhere, on any flat surface, in a way that Miles, with his dumb cat paws and caw ears, couldn’t. Of course, Miles wasn’t stuck with flippers for hands, so that was a trade-off.

On the other hand, Miguel looked like a broken umbrella and moved about as gracefully. He really wasn’t coping well with suddenly being a cartoon bat.

Gwen skated over to a newsstand and got them a map. Nobody even blinked at a penguin in a weird Spider-Ham hoodie.

“Here. Ham showed me how to travel by map the last time I was here,” she said, pulling the fan-folded paper open and handing one end to Miles to hold.

“This map just has ‘you are here’ on it and a couple of buildings?” Miguel groaned. “That can’t be right!”

“I couldn’t afford a detailed map! That kind of animation costs money!” Gwen said. She pulled a red pen out of her hoodie. “Look, we just have to get from here,” she circled the ‘you are here!’ X, “to here!” 

She drew a line and circled a building. The designation ‘Ham’s apartment’ suddenly appeared, and the line she drew went brighter, speeding from their location to the building.

“Woah!” Miles said as he looked up at the apartment building they were suddenly in front of.

“What…?” Miguel’s big ears twitched and his eyes were red question marks for a beat. “What just happened?!”

“We traveled by map, like I said. Lots easier than taking the bus!” Gwen looked at the stairs into the lobby of the building. “Or the stairs.” She waddled forward. “This is going to be … work...”

Gwen made it up the stairs with Miles’ help, and they were able to get Ham on the intercom. He buzzed them into the building and told them to come up.

“Is that… safe?” Miguel asked, looking at the cartoon elevator.

“We’re cartoons in a cartoon universe. I’m not sure we  _ can _ get hurt here,” Miles said. He certainly had seen Ham shrug off things that would kill a real person, like an anvil to the head, or slamming into a wall so hard he turned into a can of spam for a moment. As long as they had their goobers and were tooned up, they were probably safe. 

He didn’t go jumping off buildings without his web shooters, though. No reason to tempt fate to smush him like a bug. 

They got to Ham’s floor with only the normal amount of creaky gears, so the elevator was safe enough. An ‘awooga!’ sound went off when Miles rapped on Ham’s door, and it swung open almost immediately. 

Han smiled out at them, almost as cheerfully bright as the Hawaiian shirt he was wearing. It was weird how he was tall for a toon; Miles had to look up to him here in the tooniverse.

“Hi kids!” Porker said, and then looked Miguel up and down. “And  _ hello Nurse! _ ” Ham grinned widely as he waggled his eyebrows.

Miles and Gwen looked at each other and rolled their eyes. 

Miguel frowned at Ham, and his big bat ears flopped back in bafflement. “I have a doctorate, not a nursing degree.”

“... You also don’t have any radar, do you? Despite those ears.”

Miguel seemed confused, but followed as Ham let them into his place. Miles had been to the apartment before. It was kind of weirdly simple, but there were comfy seats and Ham usually had a lot of snacks to share.

Gwen launched into an explanation of how they’d found Miguel, and Miguel tried unsuccessfully to sit in a chair. He really had no idea how to manage his wings; Miles guessed it was because they were also his hands, sort of, and way too long. Not everyone were like the various Parkers and got to be pigs like Ham, neat and tidy and not prone to getting their tail caught in rocking chairs.

“This sounds like more than you guys can handle on a school night. Leave him with me for now and come back tomorrow.”

“Aww, Ham!” Miles said. “I can handle--”

“Ah ah ah! School first, heroics later. You have a real teen life to get back to. Both of you!” With that, Ham pushed them out the door with a broom. The door slammed shut, and suddenly sprouted a dozen ostentatious locks.

“I guess we’re coming back tomorrow,” Gwen said.

  
  


Miguel had red hair, it turned out. Miles found this out, because he almost bumped heads with the guy, who was hanging from Ham’s ceiling and had removed his Spider-Man mask. He had a shock of dark red hair, red eyes, and fangs. 

It was not quite what he was expecting when he came back to Ham’s the next day.

Nor was the black-clad boar with a fedora that was in Ham’s kitchen, helping Ham make ridiculously tall sandwiches.

“Noir!” 

“Hey Miles,” Noir said, and then handed up a plate to Miguel, who was still dangling from the ceiling lamp. “Looks like we got a bit of a situation here.”

“Something like that.”

Miguel snorted from above them and dropped to the floor. He took a breath, visibly swallowing the sandwich Noir had handed him, and said, “It’s more than a situation! I need help!” as he flapped his hands in wild gestures.

“You sure do,” Gwen muttered.

Miles frowned at her. “Be nice,” he hissed.

Ham chuckled, but turned on his TV -- it had a knob that turned, like an old kitchen timer. It flickered weirdly, all grey static and wiggly lines, before Peter B’s face appeared, simplified into cartoony avatar. He had a cup of coffee in his hand.

Peter B’s eyes scanned them all, focusing on Miguel, who was stuffing another sandwich into his mouth, as puffy-cheeked as a hamster. He looked up, saw them all staring, and swallowed comically.

“So that’s the guy?” Peter B asked.

“Yep. That’s our newest Spider,” Ham said.

“All right, come on over.”

“What?” Miguel protested. “Go to  _ another _ universe? Why?”

“You’re coming here,” Peter B said, “because I don’t like getting turned into a pig.”

“Aw, but then we’re twinsies!” Ham cooed.

Peter B snorted, the tv blinked off, but a portal whirled open instead.

Noir picked Ham up by the back of his outfit, tossing him through the open portal before jumping in himself.

“We’re going to do this now?” Miguel asked.

“Yep. That we are,” Gwen jumped through the portal in a perfect penguin dive.

Miguel rolled his eyes, and pulled his mask back on. “Well, I guess it’s not the worst plan. At least I won’t be a bat anymore.” 

The portal coughed them out in Peter B’s house, which was Aunt May’s house back in Miles’ world, and was mostly the same -- a post-war bungalow, living room in front, kitchen in back, bedrooms upstairs -- except the entire layout was mirrored left to right and Miles would walk into walls when he visited if he didn’t concentrate on where stuff was, like doorways.

Peter B was looking at them all dubiously; his suit was visible under his shirt, the bright colors peeking out, but he wasn’t wearing his mask. He also was wearing bunny slippers, which was a new low in inappropriate footwear, even for Peter B. They were pink and had bows between their ears.

“Why are you still a pig?” Miguel asked, goggling at Ham as everyone untangled themselves.

“Why aren’t you a pig?” Ham retorted, and hopped up on the couch.

“I wasn’t a pig to to start with!”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Ham said. “Hi, Peter B!”

“Ham!” Peni cried as she slipped through the door to the kitchen. “I’m glad to see you guys!”

“Is every one of you a child?” Miguel said. “I need help, not to lead a school trip!”

“Hey!” Miles snapped. “I’ve been Spider-Man for almost a whole year!”

“Oh, almost a whole year,” Miguel said. “That’s so reassuring; I wouldn’t want to work with an inexperienced Spider-Man. Though one who was actually tall enough to ride a rollercoaster would be nice.”

“Hey!” Miles snapped, and Gwen and Peni too. He glanced at them, and smiled. It was nice to be defended.

“Hands up,” Miguel said, “everyone who is old enough to vote!”

Peter B raised his hand mockingly. Ham’s hand shot up--Miles wondered what sorts of things cartoons voted on-- and...Peni’s?

“Peni?” Miles asked. Peni was his age. She shouldn’t be able to vote yet? Or maybe the future was really weird about that?

She smiled a little too wide, her version of nervous babble, and blurted, “I'm almost all the way through the Adulthood Competency Tests! I get to vote in hyper-local elections!”

“Never mind that,” Peter B cut in. “Noir?”

Miles glanced over at Noir. He’d raised his hand, hadn’t he? He was old. Older. Maybe?

“Voting age is 21,” Noir muttered and looked down at his hands in his lap.

Peter B stared at him. 

“...you're not 21?” Gwen asked. 

“But you’re, like, old!” Miled said. And the voting age was 18, at least in Miles’ universe. 

“I’m nineteen,” Noir said. Then added, “in two months.”

“...uhm,” Miles said cleverly. That meant… Noir was eighteen, didn’t it? Like, supposed to be in high school age, right? That couldn’t have been different in the 1930s, Miles didn’t think.

Peter B turned to Miguel and said in a weirdly chipper voice. “You’re an adult, aren’t you? Just to be clear.”

Miguel just stared at Peter B for a moment, and then said “Yes. I’m an adult.”

“Great!” Peter B flopped into an armchair. “We’re keeping you. Turns out, I’m outnumbered. By toddlers.”

“I’m an adult!” Ham pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. A fan fold of cards and photos spilled out, all the way to the floor and beyond. “It says so right on my driver’s license here!” Ham pulled out one of the cards and waved it at Peter B.

Peter B took the card that Ham held out and peered at it. He frowned. “Ham, your date of birth is just a bunch of question marks.”

Ham bristled, “The point is that I have a license, clearly I am an adult!”

“Absolutely nothing about your driving skills suggests you didn’t get this thing out of a crackerjack box.”

Miles had ridden in Ham’s car once. It had a wind-up key on the trunk. Miles wasn’t sure that  _ it _ hadn’t come out of a box of crackerjack.

“Well then, where did you get your driver’s lisence from? A box of Cheetos?

Peter B raked a hand through his hair. ”I don’t actually have a license, but—”

"Aha!” Ham yelled. “How do we know  _ you’re _ an adult??”

Miles tried to defend Peter B. “I mean, he does eat more junk food than I do, but he’s…”

“This is not about me!” Peter B barked. “This is about... what, what is this about?” He trailed off, looking at Miles and Gwen.

“The stability of the multiverse,” Miguel snapped.

“... seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” Miguel waved his hands around. “Can we get back to that?”

Miles looked between the two adults. “Um. Aren’t there, like...multiverse-fixing people you should be talking to about this?”

Miguel looked at him, then at Peter B, then at Gwen and the rest. In a very dubious tone, “Apparently  _ you _ all fixed it last time.”

“The  _ multiverse _ ?!” Miles yelped. I thought it was just the city that would’ve—” he mimed an explosion with his hand.

“Huh,” Noir said at Miguel’s stony frown. “I guess things like that, they probably echo through the cosmic structure, and you start getting cascading instability in other realities. Some sort of amplification wave… what?”

Miles just kept staring at Noir. He hadn’t been expecting Noir to break out into a monologue from Cosmos; he wasn’t exactly Brian May.

“You just come up with that off the top of your head, bud?” Peter B asked. He looked like he was suppressing a smirk.

Noir hunched in on himself and offered, “I like theoretical physics?”

“Aww,” Peni cooed, and shoved playfully at Noir’s shoulder with her fist. Miles rolled his eyes; they were so weird together.

“So...yeah, it’s something like that.”

“Wait,” Gwen asked. “You don’t know?”

“I’m a biologist, not a superstring physicist. My AI does the math.” He pulled off his mask and rubbed his eyes. He was still red-headed, and red-eyed too. Real red eyes, like a lab rat.

“Woah!” Miles gasped. “I thought that was just because you were a bat!”

“You thought what?” Miguel looked baffled. 

“Is red a normal eye color in your dimension?” Gwen asked.

“What? You take the cartoon pig in stride, but a gene-modded eye color bothers you?” He frowned, and Miles stiffened at the way his mouth...

“Wait, do you actually have fangs?!” Miles asked. “Are you a  _ vampire _ Spider-Man?”

Miguel glared at Miles, his entire face twisted up, and boy, did he ever have fangs that way. “No, I am not a  _ vampire _ . Yes, I have fangs, because I have spider DNA and spiders have fangs.”

“Huh,” Miles said, and then whipped his hand around, indicating everyone else. “We didn’t get fangs.”

“Because you’re all fake spiders,” Miguel retorted. Wow, for an old guy he sure acted like a mean girl -- even Peter B hadn’t sounded this much like Miles’ nastier schoolmates the way Miguel did.

“Um,” Noir said.

“Something else you’d like to share with the class, Peter Darker?” Peter B asked, leaning forward in his chair. His eyes narrowed. “Do  _ you _ have fangs?!”

Miles turned to look at Noir, who was making himself as small as a giant guy dressed entirely in black could manage. “No way!”

Miguel snorted from his seat on the sofa. “Next you’re going to say you don’t have spinnerets!”

“Mechanical web-shooters, actually,” Peter B said. “Invented them myself.”

“Can we please stop talking about this stuff?” Noir whined.

“Noir, are we going to have to have a talk?” Peter B took on a fake lecturing tone. “See, when a teenager is bitten by a radioactive spider, certain changes may occur. This is perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of. Well, ‘natural’ may be stretching it a bit...”

Noir pulled off his hat and his mask, all in a go. Miles stared. As far as he knew Noir had never taken off his mask in front of any of them before, and definitely not in front of  _ all _ of them. He pulled out a case from inside his coat, opened it to reveal big round dork glasses, and put them on.

And glared. It was an impressive glare. The fangs made it so. And the extra pupils in Noir’s eyes. That was a lot of glaring, all concentrated in one place.

He looked a lot like Peter B, except for a longer face and black hair. And the black fangs fuzzing up the corners of his mouth, and grey eyes with a wheel of tiny pupils circling a central pupil. So...not exactly like Peter B.

“Okay...” Peter B said, “I understand you wearing your mask all the time now...” 

Miles stepped closer. “That’s so cool! Can I draw you? Hold still and let me get some markers?” He looked around. Peter B usually had paper and pens scattered all over the place. He really wanted to capture Noir’s face, because it was so interesting; it’d be great practice for his sketchbook, if he could just get something down on paper...

“Great fangs!” Ham said. “Mine weren’t nearly that big!”

“Does that affect your vision,” Miguel added, leaning toward Noir with intent. Intent for what Miles wasn’t certain, but he was really interested in Noir all of the sudden, “or has your brain just adapted? Professional interest, I designed most of my mods myself, and they didn’t manifest the way I thought they would…”

“... I notice more things to the side now, and my aim has improved?”

A shrill whistle pierced the room.

“Guys, guys, guys,” Peter B said, “While Noir’s fangs  _ are _ impressive, good job keeping that under wraps, kid, can we get back to the ‘the multiverse might collapse’ problem?”

Miguel straightened abruptly. “Yes, that. Right.”

“C’mon, bud,” Ham said. “We don’t got all year.”

“I need you all to come with me. The multiverse had destabilized, and it’s going to take every Spider we can find to fix it.” Miguel frowned. “Except for that guy from Earth-67. I don’t want to talk about him.”

Miles looked to the other Spiders, then back to Miguel. “I think you need to explain better. From the beginning?”

Miguel rolled his eyes, and sighed. “All right, from the beginning. One last time.”

Miles smiled as the Spiders leaned in to hear their newest member explain himself. This was going to be the start of something spectacular.


End file.
